Wednesday, October 29, 2008

I try hard not to think about it. But I feel terrible knowing that I'll have to take these drugs for the rest of my life. I also think about what kind of changes these things I don't need to take because I've never been depressed or manic or nothing are promoting in my body.As I already said I've spend two years of my life withdrawing Effexor and felt all withdrawal symptoms. It was hell and I had to go back to the drug because I felt physical and emotional things that I cannot even describe. I only could withdraw 400 mg of Seroquel and clonazepam, the drug that led me to a psychiatrist in search for help to withdraw and made of me a psychiatric patient because of the wrong prescription of an antidepressant and side effects were seen as diseases by other psychiatrist... blah blah... sick to death of this story.I have to go home at midnight and if I plan to travel I have to think about the drugs I'll have to carry if I spend three days without these drugs I'll be put on a mental institution yadda yadda.... I'll have to ask for prescriptions to buy these drugs forever.You know it all.But not the people I know. They don't have a clue about what has happened to me.Trying to withdraw it all over again?I'm 49 and 9 months, 50 years old.I would live withdrawal hell for the rest of my life?These and other questions and feelings come to my mind from time to time.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

I'm following Fiddaman steps. In this post he has homaged Rob Robinson, who has created SSRIcitizen .org, by putting online again some of his writings that he has saved. I've saved three pages in 2005 and I think that this page on books are of great help.

Dr. David Healy is Reader in Psychological Medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine and Visiting Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is author of more than 120 peer reviewed articles and more than a dozen books, including The Antidepressant Era (Harvard) and The Creation of Psychopharmacology (Harvard). He is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on SSRIs.Note: The following book review is by Arthur Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. His study of pharmaceutical research ethics is forthcoming in The Journal of Medical Ethics.

"Before Prozac, few people risked getting depression. Now, it seems, we are all at risk. Better pay close attention, then, to David Healy's wonderfully perspicuous account of how a treatment can manufacture disease.Of course, depression has always been with us, and Healy presents some moving stories of how this disease can blight the lives of those affected. The great boom in depressive illness, however, dates back only to the discovery and marketing of Prozac.Prior to the 1990s, comparatively few people were thought to suffer from depression: perhaps one person in 10,000. With the discovery of the Prozac family of drugs there came, not coincidentally, an explosive increase in diagnoses of depressive illness. Current estimates claim that one in 10 of the population is clinically depressed. A thousand-fold increase. In barely a decade, depression has gone from being a rare disorder to being classed as one of the greatest afflictions of humankind — requiring that millions of comparatively healthy people be treated with powerful medication. An old cliché jumps irresistibly to mind: To the man with a hammer in his hand, everything looks like a nail.As one of the first researchers to investigate the serotonin reuptake mechanisms in depressed people, Healy was in the vanguard of the SSRI revolution that gave the world Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa. He has been a consultant for many of the leading players — Eli Lilly, Pharmacia and Upjohn — and has spoken at international symposia for Pfizer, SmithKline Beecham and AstraZeneca. Harvard University Press has published two of his dozen books. Little wonder, then, that the University of Toronto faculty of medicine was initially thrilled to recruit Healy to its department of psychiatry.In the world of psychopharmacology, Healy is an insider's insider. This inside track makes his account of the sordid underbelly of the drug industry both more believable and more disquieting. He really does know where the bodies are buried, literally as well as figuratively, and readers will find their confidence in the integrity of drug research badly shaken.Although Healy was an early advocate of Prozac, his clinical research persuaded him that the Prozac drug group could trigger suicide and violence in some patients. Later, when he gained access to internal company communications, he discovered that the companies themselves knew of the problem.Healy concludes that SSRIs might benefit some people in the short term, but he finds little reason to think that they help things to turn out better in the long run. Most worryingly, he presents persuasive evidence that the SSRIs make a significant number of people suicidal and a larger number addicted.There is no nice way of putting this: The drug companies have subordinated patient safety on the altar of blockbuster profits. Aggressive marketing has persuaded the medical profession to prescribe SSRI drugs to people who are simply struggling with mundane anxieties. Unwilling to risk the death of a goose that lays such golden eggs, the companies refuse to sponsor the kind of large-scale scientific research that would map out the true frequency and seriousness of side effects. Absent such research, doctors and patients are unable to make properly informed choices.There may be only 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are at least 150 ways to design drug experiments so that they are skewed in favor of the sponsoring company's products. From my own research on the ethics of clinical trials, I thought I knew all the tricks of the trade. I was mistaken. Healy has taught me some new ones.Want to eliminate evidence of dangerous side effects from your new anti-depressant? First, ensure that company scientists design the experiment and tabulate the data before it is turned over to the university scientist whose name will grace the eventual publication. Better yet, when volunteers enrolled in the experiment become agitated (and potentially suicidal or violent), code them as "failing to respond to treatment." Amazingly, by this simple sleight of hand, the alarming side effects disappear. What isn't recorded doesn't exist. The respected scientist whose name goes on the ghost-written publication -- a widespread practice, as Healy shows -- seldom sees the raw data and is happy to collect a generous fee from the company along with the status that comes with having "his" research published in a prestigious journal.Leading drug industry figures play an unsavory role in this story, but it cannot be said that either the medical profession or government regulators emerge with armour shining. Those charged with protecting the public from unjustifiable harms seem not yet to have taken on board the central lesson of the 1962 thalidomide tragedy: All drugs are inherently risky. Only honest and well-designed research can tell us which drugs offer which patients the likelihood of more benefit than harm.Because universities and hospitals float on a sea of drug company money, few seem keen to raise critical questions about unethical research practices. Moreover, when researchers demonstrate moral courage by going public with evidence of harmful side effects, they may find themselves sued by the company (Toronto doctor Nancy Olivieri for example, was threatened with legal action by a pharmaceutical company after she told her patients of the potential dangers of a drug she was testing on them. Others risk termination).Let Them Eat Prozac tells a compelling story, with strong resemblances to a detective novel. The drama of Healy's personal odyssey, from pro-industry scientist to embattled critic, illuminates the dark side of the bargain between modern science and Big Pharma. The book is edifying and frightening. But never depressing."

Joseph Glenmullen, M.D. is a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is on the staff of Harvard University Health Services and is in private practice in Harvard Square. A strong patient advocate, Dr. Glenmullen testified at the FDA hearing that resulted in the recent warning that antidepressants make patients, including children and adolescents, suicidal. The warning covers all ten of the currently popular antidepressants: Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, Celexa, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Luvox, Remeron, and Serzone.The following book review appeared in The Boston Globe on June 8, 2000

"In a front-page article on June 8, 2000 by Mitchell Zuckoff entitled 'Prozac data was kept from trial, suit says,' the Globe reported: 'In a federal lawsuit filed yesterday in Hawaii, the family of William Forsyth says that Lilly 'committed a fraud on the court' by failing to tell the family's lawyers about a patent that claims a new version of the drug eliminates side effects of the existing Prozac, including violent suicidal thoughts.On March 3, 1992, 11 days after he began taking Prozac, Forsyth fatally stabbed his wife multiple times with a serrated kitchen knife and then impaled himself on the blade.Of some 200 lawsuits filed against Lilly asserting that the use of Prozac led to suicide or violence, the Forsyth case was only the second to yield a verdict. Lilly settled many of the others, and the only other one to reach a jury, in 1994, was widely reported to have been a victory for the company. In fact, it was settled in a secret agreement between Lilly and the plaintiffs.'Prozac Backlash reports in detail on the secret settlement in this 1994 test case against Prozac and Lilly, which went to trial. Lilly won what appeared to be a jury verdict in the trial, which the pharmaceutical company widely publicized. But a later Attorney General's investigation revealed that Lilly had secretly settled the case during the trial although the victims and pharmaceutical company continued as apparent adversaries in front of the judge and jury. After the investigation, in 1997 Lilly quietly agreed to the final judgement in the trial being changed from a jury verdict in Lilly's favor to 'dismissed as settled.'The Globe quoted Dr. Glenmullen on the patent for the new Prozac: 'To me the new patent can be compared to the tobacco papers. It's a pharmaceutical company document that acknowledges this dangerous side effect which has been downplayed by Eli Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies for a decade.'"

"There is unquestionably a great deal of truth in what Breggin writes. Let the pill-swallower beware." — Los Angeles Times

Peter R. Breggin, M.D. began in the full time private practice of psychiatry in 1968. Dr. Breggin has been informing the professions, media and the public about the potential dangers of drugs, electroshock, psychosurgery, involuntary treatment, and the biological theories of psychiatry for over three decades. Since 1964 Dr. Breggin has been publishing peer-reviewed articles and medical books in his subspecialty of clinical psychopharmacology. He is the author of dozens of scientific articles and more than fifteen professional books about psychiatric medication, the FDA and drug approval process, the evaluation of clinical trials, and standards of care in psychiatry and related fields.For thirty years Dr. Breggin has served as a medical expert in many civil and criminal suits including product liability suits against the manufacturers of psychiatric drugs. His work provided the scientific basis for the original combined Prozac suits and for the more recent Ritalin class action suits. His efforts as a medical expert have resulted in the FDA changing numerous official drug labels.Dr. Breggin's background includes Harvard College, Case Western Reserve Medical School, a teaching fellowship at Harvard Medical School, a two-year staff appointment to the National Institute of Mental Health, and a faculty appointment to the Johns Hopkins University Department of Counseling.

Charles Medawar is layman, a specialist on medicines policy and drug safety issues with a particular interest in corporate, governmental and professional accountability. He writes, broadcasts and lectures regularly, and runs a web site (www.socialaudit.org.uk) which now attracts some 500,000 visitors a year. Anita Hardon is Professor in Anthropology of Care and Health at the University of Amsterdam. She has published widely, specializing on women’s health issues and studies of medicines’ use in Asia, Africa and Europe, and teaches international courses on promoting rational drug use. She currently chairs the Health Action International (Europe) foundation board.The following book overview is taken from Social Audit’s web site:"Published in March 2004, Medicines out of Control? draws on the SSRI antidepressant case history to describe a system of medicines’ control tainted by secrecy and conflicts of interest, barely accountable to the public, lacking in common sense and losing sight of the meaning of health. Subtitled Antidepressants and the Conspiracy of Goodwill, this book reveals a demonstrably chaotic system of drug evaluation, driven by the almost unquestioned assumption that health is the product of greater ‘disease awareness’ and more new drugs.These trends reflect the growing dominance of global and market values that now threaten to turn pharmaceutical medicine into something of a polluting enterprise, deeply damaging to the atmosphere of health. Alas, this is no more obvious than global warming to the driver of your average car.Medicines out of Control? is an attempt to promote a complete rethink about what medicines contribute to health, and the basis of decision-making about drug benefits, risks and harm."What has emerged from all this is a story about the promotion, regulation, prescribing and use of mood-regulating drugs, mainly antidepressants like Prozac, Seroxat and Paxil. As it unfolds a drug crisis in the making, the story develops as a picture of unhealthy dependence on corporate and professional power.The story leads to analysis: an attempt to explain to an engaged and curious layperson the basis for thinking that, for all the triumphs and gains, pharmaceutical medicine is losing sight of health and dangerously lacking in public accountability. However, the question mark in the book title is emphatic – an invitation to make up your own mind how you find medicine and what you want it to be.This book is in no way a guide to your medical treatment; at best it can help to explain only how and why you may be treated as you are. On the basis of your experience and what you read, you might conclude either that the control of medicines is in dire need of overhaul and rethinking, or that it is an affront even to suggest that.Either way — or perhaps something in between — this analysis is offered for peer-review and consultation, and is meant to promote comment and debate. The authors and sponsors would welcome feedback, to help prepare the next edition of this book. This first edition is intended for only limited circulation, through 2004. A revised and popular edition of this book is planned.

You can contact Charles Medawar by writing care of: Social Audit Ltd, P.O. Box 111, London NW1 8XG, UK., or sending him an email at: charles@socialaudit.org.uk

Reviewed by Shannon Brownlee, a Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.

Every author should be so lucky. While Jerome Kassirer and Marcia Angell were holed up in their offices, typing away, Congress launched an investigation into financial entanglements between industry and the National Institutes of Health. Then Pfizer was hit with nearly half a billion dollars in fines for paying doctors to hype its anti-seizure drug Neurontin for unapproved — and largely unproven — uses. Now, New York state attorney general Eliot Spitzer has accused another drug giant, GlaxoSmithKline, of burying evidence that the antidepressant Paxil can trigger suicide. It's great news for Angell's and Kassirer's book sales, bad news for the rest of us.These stories about the unholy alliance between the pharmaceutical industry, researchers, and doctors may have seemed, to the casual observer, like nothing more than isolated blips. Sad to say — as these surprisingly bare-knuckled books by the last two editors-in-chief at the New England Journal of Medicine make clear — such accounts provide a mere glimpse of the corruption of medical science.In the last two decades, the drug and biotech industries have gained unprecedented leverage over what doctors and patients know — and don't know— about the $200 billion worth of prescription pharmaceuticals consumed by Americans each year. Industry has gained that leverage by funding and, increasingly, controlling medical research. It has also used its deep pockets to effectively buy the loyalty of physicians in private practice and to sway the opinion of thought-leaders in academia. Grasp the full scope of industry influence over medical science and practice, and it's enough to make anybody think twice before filling a prescription.At NEJM, Angell and Kassirer had front-row seats to industry's infiltration of medical science. Angell aims her broadsides at the misdeeds of the pharmaceutical industry, which, she writes, “has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the U.S. Congress, the Food and Drug Administration, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself.”Drug company influence begins with funding most of the clinical research upon which the nation depends for accurate information about the uses and dangers of drugs. That means that the studies in scientific journals are increasingly likely to be designed, controlled, and even ghostwritten by marketing departments, Angell argues, rather than scientists.Many researchers and doctors maintain — and no doubt believe — that science always arrives at the truth, and that their professional judgment cannot be influenced by this influx of industry money. But all evidence suggests otherwise. Studies involving thousands of published papers show unequivocally that corporate largesse skews science: When industry (rather than government) pays for a study, that study is more likely to reflect well on its products. Similarly, authors who argue favorably for a company's drug are more likely to have financial ties to the company than researchers whose opinion is either neutral or negative.The bottom line is that the medical journals, those critical reference points for doctors, are filled with happy talk about drugs that are often either more dangerous or less efficacious than promised. Far from being an exception, GlaxoSmithKline's apparent failure to publish negative data about Paxil is now routine in an industry that treats scientific journals less as repositories of knowledge than, as Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, puts it, “information laundering operations.”Where Angell chronicles the drug companies' driving role in all of this, Kassirer details the complicity of increasing numbers of doctors and academics who are living high on the industry hog. Kassirer describes going to a medical meeting where the atmosphere seems less conducive to the exchange of sober scientific information and more “Hollywood set.” As he recalls, "Scores of beautiful men and women from pharmaceutical, biotechnology, device, and book companies greet the doctors wandering through the hall, where enormous, expensive, artistic creations announce the success of the companies' drugs with lights, sound... and electronic wizardry." Doctors crowd in for free notepads, pens, and T-shirts emblazoned with drug brands. Then there are the dinners at chic restaurants, and all-expenses-paid excursions to nearby attractions.These freebies are only the most visible aspect of the culture of greed and self-deception that now permeates much of academic medicine and private practice. A quarter of academic scientists now have financial ties to industry: Companies woo them with invitations to sit on scientific advisory committees (for a salary, of course), lucrative consulting contracts, and stock options potentially worth millions of dollars. Doctors in private practice get on the gravy train by accepting bounties for enrolling patients in studies, or signing up as “consultants” in exchange for being flown to exotic locales to hear lectures about a company's drugs. All the perks add up. For one head of an academic medical department, according to an investigation by the Boston Globe, industry liaisons amounted to more than $400,000 in a single year.None of this would matter so much if prescription drugs were just another type of consumer product, like fancy vodka or luxury cars. But drugs are not like other goods, and the corrupting influence of pharmaceutical industry money has hurt patients. Earlier this year, to take just the most recent example, the FDA cautioned doctors about prescribing certain antidepressants to children after reviewing 12 studies that found them no more effective in teens and children than a placebo and after the British government warned that one brand was three times as likely to trigger suicide. Those results undoubtedly came as a shock to the doctors around the country who have been writing 10 million antidepressant prescriptions for children and adolescents each year.Both Kassirer and Angell offer a variety of potential fixes, ranging from creating a federally funded institute for drug studies to changing patent laws so the industry will stop padding profits by reformulating existing drugs and return to its original mission of coming up with truly innovative drugs. More difficult to remedy, however, is the loss of the scientific ethos, the idea that doing good is ample compensation. Not even science can overcome the corrupting influence of money.This groundbreaking book sounds a clear warning about the serious health risks associated with prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications — and exposes the side effects that kill 100,000 people a year and put another million in the hospital. Consumer advocate and prizewinning investigative journalist Thomas Moore reveals the shocking truth about the dangers you face each time you swallow a pill, offering invaluable advice on becoming an informed consumer — and keeping yourself and your family safe.

Known as “the Ralph Nader of psychiatry,” Dr. Peter Breggin has been the medical expert in countless court cases involving the use or misuse of psychoactive medications. This unusual position has given him unprecedented access to private pharmaceutical research and correspondence files, information from which informs this straight-talking guide to the most prescribed and controversial category of American drugs: antidepressants. The Anti-Depressant Fact Book is up-to-the minute and easy-to-access. Hard-hitting and enlightening, every current, former, and prospective antidepressant-user will want to read this book.

Ms. Griffin is a survivor of a severe and protracted Paxil withdrawal from. Blind Reason, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2003, grew out of her tragedy. From a review at Amazon: “Nobody prepared me for what I would find between the covers of this fantastic book. I had just finished reading King of Torts when someone suggested Blind Reason, which made Grisham's tale of pharmaceutical corruption look like a comic book. Griffon's attention to detail is astounding; her research into the Third Reich, the CIA and the pharmaceutical industry is meticulous. The plot is fast-paced and the dialogue, on a host of subjects, is brilliant, but I was left with the haunting question of how much of what Griffon wrote is fact or fiction. The lines are definitely blurred. This is a great weekend read.”

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Transparency International, the global coalition against corruption founded in 1993, is trying hard to implement anti-corruption reforms worldwide and claims that "corruption hurts everyone".Of course they have to focus on medicine and on this page there are some data on the corruption in the pharmaceutical industry and health.

This is one of their texts:

Corruption in the pharmaceutical industry

"In addition to cases of bribery and corruption discussed in the sub-page on procurement of medicines (typically involving drugs and medical equipment manufacturers as the bribe payers and government officials or hospital administrators as the recipients) there are other ways in which the pharmaceutical sector might have a corrosive influence on the drugs and medical equipment market.One of the reasons why the sector is vulnerable to corruption is that it is heavily regulated. Heavily regulation is essential to safeguard the population against sub-standard drugs and unfairly priced goods. But there is a second central reason why governments regulate the pharmaceutical market: to ensure that industrial policies strengthen economic competitiveness of the pharmaceutical sector and improve innovation and efficiency. These two objectives can sometimes lie at cross-purposes. If regulators are subject to pressure from commercial groups, health objectives can be compromised. Generous political campaign donations and lobbying expenditures by pharmaceutical companies are examples of such pressures.The relationship between drugs companies and physicians is also vulnerable to corruption. Doctors may be offered commissions for prescribing a particular drug or a drug from a particular company. Because this practice is illegal in most countries, companies may employ underhand methods to disguise such kickbacks. The aggressive promotion of medicines, the sheer volume of information that is received in its many forms by prescribers and the use of patient groups through which to generate demand for prescription drugs, all contribute to the inappropriate prescription of medicines. In the United States some US$ 16 billion is spent annually by pharmaceutical, device and biotechnology industries on marketing to physicians.The issue of unethical pharmaceutical marketing practice has received a great deal of attention in recent years, prompting many doctors associations, pharmaceutical industry associations and individual corporations to engage with the issue. Many have passed codes of conduct and ethical guidelines for the marketing of pharmaceuticals; but if not monitored and enforced, their impact will be limited.Another form of corruption threatening the pharmaceutical industry occurs during clinical trials. Doctors are often paid by pharmaceutical companies to recruit patients for clinical trials or sit on clinical trial boards while simultaneously on the pay role of the manufacturing company in question. Many research institutions and universities have institutional review boards or research ethics committees responsible for reporting procedures and policies regarding conflicts of interest. Problems arise as to who will monitor the conflicts of interest and what, if any, sanction doctors will receive for failing to disclose conflicts of interest. On a national level, oversight becomes even more problematic. Moreover, there is debate over whether disclosure is sufficient: should researchers be allowed to conduct research for companies in which they have a financial interest?"

It's amazing how hard it's to fight corruption and it's funny that the word "corruption" is not used when dealing with pharmaceutical industry issues. The real name for what is going on is corruption.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

I keep on wondering if I've missed the mag who wrote this article. If it's not written yet it's a shame! Perhaps by the end of the first date:

Me "-I have something to tell you. Something very serious."Him "-You can tell me whatever you want." {very understanding kind}Me "-It's really serious, you know? I don't know what you'll think about me after a tell what I have to say.Him "-You are worrying me. But what could be that serious?"Me "-I take Effexor, Seroquel and Clonazepam. {feeling like the world is falling apart}Him "-What on earth are these? Are you doing drugs like ecstasy or heroin?Me "-No! These are psychiatric drugs. {wanting to run}Him "-Say what? Are you a lunatic... I mean... mentally disturbed... you know... crazy?

I don't think this is the best way. And how am I going to explain that I'm on these drugs because of withdrawal symptoms? Would it be better to say that I'm bipolar and spare the details? Must I tell the Effexor withdrawal saga: that I've spent two years tapering off Effexor blah... blah... blah... ?Please! I need an article on one of these mags. Marie Claire, please!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

II've just found these two comments I've saved on 8/20 2005. They are from the thread "Effects after long-term use" of SocialAudit's discussion board.It's a pity that it's not open because there are many testimonies of numerous people telling their stories. They are a valuable resource for those who are withdrawing now. I've saved these two:

"My problem is this: It is now nearly three months since I stopped taking the Zoloft. Once the "physical" signs of withdrawal began to diminish (e.g., I haven't needed to take anything to sleep for three weeks now; I no longer experience the "itching" or the "passing-out sensation followed by muscle spasms") -- now, however, I seem to be mired in one of the worst depressions of my life. I've put on somewhere between 10-15 pounds over the past two months. My energy is low; I feel like I'm slogging through water much of the time. Basically, I'm sure I have all the classic symptoms of major depression, including powerful feelings of anguish, rage, and hopelessness -- except, thanks to many years working with a wonderful therapist and my own insight into antidepressants, I also recognize the perhaps iatrogenic nature of all this and am trying to ride it out, not to take it too personally."

Re:Effects after long-term use (Dec 5th posting).

"I was placed on the following drugs over a period of nearly 8 years. They were all prescribed by an expert in the study of depression, who I had appointments with at a university hospital over the complete time period. All my efforts to describe the side-effects to him were ineffectual, interrupted and over-ruled. The usual response was 'That's not the way it is...' and 'You must accept that...' :-

1. Prozac (years 1-4 approx):

Twitching - so severe that at night I lay and my entire body twanged like a plucked guitar string. In the day I would sit on my hands to stop the twitching, only for it to travel upwards to my shoulders.

Insomnia - immediate and dreadful, never lessened (despite being put on temazapan). Lack of sleep was to become a perpetual nightmare, yet it was never a problem pre-drug (when I over-slept).

Dreams - disappeared, what snatched hours of sleep I got were dreamless chasms.

Weight Gain - steady. I was probably about 8 and bit stone to start with (and had NO eating or weight problems at all, I never even weighed myself).

Tiredness/Lethargy - Constant. It took everything I had to stay on my feet for a few hours, when my head finally started to rock I could usually make it to a bed, but if I didn't manage to get under the duvet on the first attempt, then I just stayed sprawled because I couldn't make my limbs work for long enough before sleep/unconsciousness claimed me for the next 2-3 hours. After which, the insomnia kicked in, and off we went again on the same vicious merry-go-round.

Concentration - short-term declined rapidly. The ability to continue the hobbies that had survived 25 years of undiagnosed critical depression was destroyed. Every particle of willpower was now required simply to put one foot in front of the other. Ability to focus and comprehend what people were saying in general conversation declined (never a pre-drug problem). Ability to THINK virtually destroyed. Ability to 'read' people, destroyed.

Self-mutilation - started almost immediately, yet I had NEVER cut myself before in my life.

Suicidal - I had always been suicidal (thought it was the norm), but the 'want' and the 'action' were completely separate i.e. death was always a very attractive proposition, but I wasn't going to kill myself. This changed within 6 weeks, it brought the two together & probably explains why the self-mutilation started. I have never in my life experienced the like of it: the depths of blackness into which the slightest trigger or stress would drop me, the effort it took to stave off suicide, the severity and length of the battles to keep me breathing.

Socially - Didn't want to see a soul. Previously I had kept a small number of social contacts going throughout the years. Not any longer. My smile disappeared, my conversation stilted, and finally I just shut social contact down.

Verbally - ability to form coherent sentences declined. Developed verbal diarrhoea, and a tendency to repeat myself incessantly. Pre-drug I was concise, eloquent and to-the-point.

I sum up these years as being a 'twitching insomniaced zombie.' Probably used-up all willpower in trying to keep breathing and moving.

2. Citalopram (Years 4-6)

All of the above continued unabated. I tried to stop taking the drug, but ended up worse (difficult, but definitely achieved), was castigated and told to continue with the tablets.

3. Mirtazapine (Years 6-7/8)

After going to my GP, almost literally on my knees, and in total desperation, I babbled out some of the above to her. Unbeknownst, she then wrote to the specialist - who was not best pleased - but at last he decided to move away from these SSRIs. Unfortunately it was onto Mirtazapine.

Very quickly I became hostile. Hostile to everyone and everything. At the first appointment after the switch to this drug I attempted to impart the details, only to be interrupted with 'That's the disease, not the drug.' End of subject. Strange that I had always been a kind, quiet, gentle soul prior to this drug (discounting the zombie SSRI years). Even stranger that now I found my first impulses were to spout foul language, to be aggressive, to think of hitting & killing others, to go from the numbed emotions of the SSRIs to the lack of emotion altogether. The weight gain increased (I was now well over 13 stone, and waddled erratically). Sleep and tiredness problems continued. The twitching died down. I remained as suicidal as on the SSRIs. Knowing that I would not last much longer I spent my money on a holiday. I was right. About five months later I attempted suicide. After coming out of the hospital (a fascinating experience, I now know why you make damn sure a second suicide attempt works), I immediately started to reduce the mirtazapine, and over the next month weaned myself gradually off it (I learnt my lesson the hard way with the citalopram). Once off the drug I went to my GP (the one medical professional who had listened to me, and interestingly enough, the only non-specialist). She agreed with me. She wrote to inform the Professor at the university hospital that I would not be returning.

After Effects that still remain (4 years later): short-term memory completely shot; ability to concentrate virtually non-existent; cannot orgasm (since the first couple of months of the Prozac, so that makes it well over 11 years, folks); lethagy and tiredness not as bad as on drugs, but far worse than pre-drug; I tend to stagger now and then when very tired; I still have insomnia (but not as bad as on drugs); I don't dream very much - pre-drug I used to dream a lot - now sleep is mainly blank nothingness; when tired I occasionally find my right foot twitching; the level of suicidability is dramatically reduced, yet comparative to pre-drug it is bad; the desire to spout foul language, the aggression and utter hostility remain, and they are not greatly reduced. It is this that I find most appalling. After doing a search on MEDLINE I find that this effect has since been documented; the desire to self-mutilate remains, but so far I have fought it successfully; the triggers/stressors required to take me 'to the depths' are less than on the drugs BUT much greater than prior to them; emotionally I am dead, there is nothing left but uncaring disconnected blankness. Quite truthfully, I don't give a flying **** about anyone or anything, and going through all but the most basic motions is now beyond me. Pre-drug I felt too much, and filtered out in order to exist in the maelstrom. Now I clamp down on a vicious tongue, and inspect people with brutal calculation and total disinterest (myself among them). The verbal diarrhoea remains. The social isolation remains.

The person I was, pre-drug, no longer exists. I would happily give up my right arm - or whatever pound of flesh was the price - if it could get me back to that person. And yet that was an individual who was considered so ill, that my GP immediately referred me to 'the top'. It was a piece of cake, compared to this."

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

I've just found an e-mail I wrote toMelvyn Sterling on 7/2 2005 during the Effexor withdrawal. It took me 18 months to withdraw and this is the month 12 of the withdrawal process. Jesus! I was very angry and was searching everywhere.

I believe everybody should take a look at this report for it has important contribution on withdrawal symptons.Among other informations there is:

"The suicidality problem was first investigated in 1990/1; withdrawal reactions were investigated in 1993, 1996 and 1998. In 2002, the MCA organised a further intensive review of both problems. This review was abandoned in April 2003, following criticism about conflicts of interest involving key figures on the review team."

This is a clear proof that our suffering is not only the result of the insane medicine. It is also a political issue and we have to do something about it.

Reuters, the American agency supports that:

"Aggressive efforts are now underway by a powerful consortium of medical-pharmaceutical self-interest groupsamong them, the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the AmericanAcademy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)to overturn the hard won ‘Black Box’ suicidality warning label on antidepressant drugs." (www.ssricitizen.org)*.

The chairman of AMA is Melvyn Sterling from the University of California. Almost every month the Reuters Health site reports what is being done by these Associations and the University of California. They are always claiming that there is no problem whatsoever.It’s safe for children, teenagers and for us too.

Writing to these Associations, and people like this Melvyn Sterling, is not a very big task. At least it gives us some relief."

*It was an amazing site that is no longer online.

This is the e-mail to Melvyn Sterling:

"One day your whole world falls apart due to a lot of problems you had. You search for help and the psychiatrist prescribes you clonazepam. Years go by and you. as your therapy is doing you good, search for help to get rid of the clonazepam. Due to the difficulty of withdrawal effects, he prescribes an antidepressant. You feel terrible and change the psychiatrist. He tries different antidepressants. You stay on one although you feel terrible and the side effects are tremendous. So another psychiatrist prescribe another one. Side effects are almost the same. But you keep on believing that you have a disease. You stay in bed, get really depressed like never before in your life. Feel like a zombie. Your family can’t stand you no longer. You loose your friends, job, money, have no more bank account. And you are feeling so miserable and does not feel your body no longer. Than you start thinking that maybe the problem is due to the antidepressant. Start to take the drug away. You enter in a state of complete anguish, despair and you start searching in the Internet. Then you find out that there are many people suffering just like you and that it will takes a long time to get rid off a drug called antidepressant that ironically brought you into depression. The withdrawal effects are unbearable. And you find out that these drugs are powerful and are on the market not because they are good for your mental health. You find out that the USA Pharmacological Industry and some Associations like, oh my God, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, American Medical Association's Council on Scientific Affairs, the University of California, the AmericanAcademy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, even Mr. Bush father who was once on the Elli-Lilly board, take part on a powerful consortium of medical-pharmaceutical self-interest groups.

These Associations, that are supposed to take care at least of American citizens, don’t even care if children are committing suicide. Even when the evidences are everywhere even when the UK House of Parliament have published a report The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry where you can read: "The suicidality problem was first investigated in 1990/1; withdrawal reactions were investigated in 1993, 1996 and 1998. In 2002, the MCA organised a further intensive review of both problems. This review was abandoned in April 2003, following criticism about conflicts of interest involving key figures on the review team." but fortunately they had the guts to go on and publish this crucial report where you can read among other things: “… SSRIsProzac and Seroxat are the best-known examples of SSRI and related antidepressants, but others are widely used. The introduction of SSRIs led to a threefold increase in antidepressant prescriptions between 1990 and 2000. Prescriptions for antidepressants now match those of the benzodiazepine tranquillisers at their peak, 25 years ago. Almost from the outset, there was concern about two main problems with SSRIs. First, there was suspicion (initially centered on Prozac) that these drugs could induce suicidal and violent behaviour – infrequently, but independently of the suicidal thoughts that are linked to depression itself. There was also concern (centred on Seroxat) about a risk of dependence; some users found it impossible to stop taking SSRIs because of severe withdrawal symptoms. The MCA/CSM formally reviewed these problems on several occasions.”

Fortunately some countries, in this globalized world have some common sense left.

But you who are in the high position in USA insists in its policy of spreading horrors around the world even at the expenses of others people heath, as long as the billions of dollars goes to your country. Only when you loose health you know that this is the most important thing in the life of any human being. Without it, whether physical or mental, you are unable to do anything. Some of you, for I truly believe you are human beings, must have a disease of any kind. Imagine if you cannot find help or even paying for the best physician of your problem you receive a wrong treatment.

I said I truly believe you are human beings because the rationality of this species is the only one I know that can inflict pain in others without any guilty and without any reason threat to it’s life. You have Aushwitz, Gulag, Abbu Graibb, GuantanamoBay as an example of my point.

What you are inflicting with the so-called antidepressants is not different from physical torture. It’s mental torture. And it aches, it aches like hell. You have affected me and many others in my body, you know very well what it does with our bodies, my mind, my dignity and morality in the eyes of others. For to some people. I cannot work. I’m no more reliable. You know about the stigma mental problems suffer. Unfortunately, due to your work, WHO is not able to launch it’s campaign about mental diseases.I’ll stay here, in Brazil after one year and two months tapering the antidepressant and still have to get rid of the last pill. Completely stigmatized by my family, incapable of working for it’s impossible to work when you are taking away these drugs, that costs absurdly for American citizen and you can imagine having to pay these fortune due to the impossibility of getting out of these drugs in a country like Brazil. But “God Bless America” and I wish you all good mental and physical health. I hope you never have a friend or relative who shot someone due to the effect of triazolam, or any SSRI, SSNI. I wish you will never know anybody who had a relative who committed suicide. I wish you all a great deal of happiness although and a good use of the money you are profiting. Unfortunately money, when becomes not a mean but an end causes more distress than happiness for those who possesses. Can you say you are a happy person? Unfortunately it make lives like mine more difficult but for nothing in this world I would trade my dignity, my honor, my self-respect for any amount of money. You can laugh. Words like ethics, even mercy has no sense and will never make part of your dictionary.

PS Please do not answer me trying to say that you are right that what I’m saying has not been proved or that the University of California made experiments that are undeniable. My IQ still have three digits. You are fooled me once and it is enough. Now you are fooling yourselves and the average narrow-minded media class that does not search for answers by their own. Some people have to be told about everything. But the truth will be uncovered. I assure you.

Monday, October 20, 2008

"In questioning the adequacy of the official action taken so far, he raises basic questions about the competency of drug regulators and the lack of transparency in tackling user dependency and complaints in many countries."

"Part of this new and imperative emphasis on marketing involves relentless demonstrations of the triumph of benefit compared with risk, and the promotion of drugs for much more than they are worth. In this case, it also meant that the Pharmas tackled problems by challenging perceptions of risk and by ignoring or denying evidence of harm. In so doing, they systematically exploited the dependencies of governments and the medical establishment. There was little resistance, partly because the Pharmas were also dependent on them. Commercial sponsorship both sustained and undermined the reputation and independence of political, professional and academic institutions, drug regulatory systems, even patient organizations and the World Health Organization."

"But on the negative side, Pharmas were becoming expert at the subversion and manipulation of patients' views, by buying their way into patient organizations and other similar devices. As a result, patients' views "were increasingly orchestrated by marketing departments, public relations agencies and Pharma-sponsored patient organizations."

"But above all, Medawar suggests that the underlying policy objectives for pharmaceuticals are ill-founded. The main impetus for the recent EU changes in its pharmaceutical rules was the concern that the Pharmas were migrating to the US because the US was doing "better" than Europe; but, says Medawar, the perception was based on the assumption that drug innovation was what really mattered, and that quality of innovation could be measured just by the economic returns."

Sunday, October 19, 2008

"I don't want sympathy. It's a fact of life. I don't want to be a victim either. I just want to be able to live with the least amount of side effects and be able to do the things I use to be able to do."

"Virtually all my physical debilitating symptoms can be traced back to when I first started tapering my 400 mgs of Lamictal. It was then that the crushing fatigue started, a couple of years ago. My situation is greatly complicated by the fact that I’ve come off six drugs so no one should generalize too broadly from my experience, but something should be able to be taken for those of you who are also having difficulties with withdrawal from Lamictal."

Friday, October 17, 2008

"However, to my knowledge it isn't known if this effect persists after discontinuation. What else? That it can cause prolonged sexual dysfunction after discontinuation? In my experience sexual function improves after discontinuation, although as I have said before I am always interested in hearing about new problems that people have with medications. Do you have that problem?"

This is Dr. Doug Bremner statement at Fiddaman "More Correspondence with Doug Bremner". I've asked many question Dr. Bremner answered them with more and more questions, ignored some of than or used the famous "according to my clinical experience it's not like this... -" what made the discussion impossible.

It sounds strange that at this point drug-induced sexual problems and PSSD are not recognized by some physicians.I believe this article explains something so I've copied some excerpts.

Post SSRI Sexual DysfunctionAudrey S. Bahrick, Ph.D."Post-market research has now firmly established that the SSRIs and SNRIs can significantly affect most very aspect of sexual functioning at rates significantly higher than the 5-15% reported in pre-market trials.Depending on definitions of sexual dysfunction and methodology, post-market prevalence studies have found rates between 36% and 98%. The 5 to 15% rates of SSRI and SNRI-induced sexual side-effects listed in the current drug-insert literature are based on information obtained in the initial trials via spontaneous reports of individuals who had been on the medications for a short time. The differences in reported rates between the pre-market trials and post-market prevalence studies are an artifact of methodology; we now know that when individuals are directly asked about their experience of sexual side effects via either a structured clinical interview or a self-report inventory, we obtain vastly different rate information than if we rely on individuals to spontaneously volunteer personally sensitive information about changes in sexual functioning.""The assumption that sexual functioning returns to baseline shortly after cessation of the medications is deeply embedded in our literature as well as in our approach to practice and prescribing.Yet no original data supports this assumption: no study has followed the course of the sexual dysfunction after discontinuation of the medications for the purpose of determining when and to what degree the side effects resolve. While treatment-emergent sexual side effects probably do resolve for most individuals after discontinuing the medications, since we are not even asking the question of whether the side effects could persist for some individuals, we have not built the possibility of finding them into our research designs: at least not intentionally.""Consumer reported information about persistent sexual side effects comes from the SSRIsex internet community. Founded in January of 2005, SSRIsex now includes a diverse membership of over eight hundred men and women who are struggling with sexual side effects that reportedly began on an SRI/SNRI, but that have persisted months and years after stopping the medications. The group’s purpose is support, the generation of hypotheses about what may have led to the persistent sexual dysfunction side effects, the sharing of information about attempted solutions, and the hope of enlisting researchers and professionals in collaborative efforts to understand and resolve the problem. Along with an ongoing moderated conversation among the membership that now includes over six thousand postings, his well-organized site includes a data base where individuals may describe their case history, and numerous voluntary polls related to particular side effects and their duration, specific medications and how long they were taken, and remedies attempted along with their results. Though the group has not yet been systematically surveyed, based on member postings and informal poll information, it appears that while any and all sexual side effects that start on the medications may continue after stopping them, reduced genital sensitivity, reduced intensity of orgasm, and severely diminished libido are characteristic of the condition which the group membership has termed Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD). It appears that a shared persistent effect of these medications is that they profoundly diminish the physical capacity to experience sexual pleasure. The day to day conversation among the geographically, ethnically and age-diverse-membership related to the problem of living with PSSD, for most a worse condition than the one they originally sought to treat, has created an unfolding collective narrative whose weight and substance urgently needs to be reconciled and integrated into our existing knowledge base.""We are not negligent as professionals when we turn to our formal literature to inform ourselves. However when our formal knowledge base is inadequate or inaccurate, we are all left vulnerable to practicing in ways that may be less than ideal, to offering hurtful interpretations or misleading information to our clients in spite of our best intentions and best efforts to inform ourselves. The inadequacies and inaccuracies in our knowledge base have complex informed consent implications. A careful informed consent process includes accurate acknowledgment of our limits of knowledge. These limits would appear to be more far-reaching than we may have realized given the possibility of medication-induced sexual dysfunctions persisting for an unknown number of people, and the near impossibility of gaining a clear picture of how these medication may affect those individuals who have no well-established baseline of sexual functioning or are undeveloped sexually, such as adolescents and children.""The burden and responsibility of providing informed consent falls to us all, but falls even more squarely on the shoulders of those who hold or will hold prescription privileges. I appreciate Division 55’s invitation to contribute this article and demonstrated high level of concern for accurate informed consent."

There is a site on PSSD but it has been hacked a long time ago and has not been reactivated.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Searching for IATROGENESIS I've found this article and I'm glad that someone has noticed that the concept is not known.

The Number 3 Killer in America is IatrogenesisBy Daryl Kulak

The number 1 killer in America? Heart disease. Number 2? Cancer. Number 3? Iatrogenesis.

Have you ever heard of iatrogenesis? The word doesn't even sound that harmful. It comes from two Greek words – iatros – meaning physician, and genesis – meaning created. Yes, the number 3 killer in America is death by doctor.

Did you know this? Wasn't it plastered all over the newspapers? Unbelievably, it was not broadcast on cable news channels, daily newspapers or on the radio.

This might make you suspect the origin of my claim. Did it come from some crazy tabloid? Some off-the-wall Website?

Sunday, October 12, 2008

This is scary. I've just came across with this and I believe that if this use of SSRIs is not enough to convince that something very serious is happening I don't know what else is needed:

"In recent years SSRIs have been used to reduce sex offenders' deviant sexual thoughts and fantasies. Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, plays a role in regulating sexual drive, depression, obsessions, compulsions, anxiety, impulsiveness and anger. SSRIs are antidepressants that are also approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety. Although double-bind placebo controlled trials are needed, studies using self-report measures or PPG have found that these medications do reduce some repetitive sexually deviant fantasies and/or behavior (Greenberg& Bradford, 1997; Kafka, 1991, 1994; Kafka & Prentky, 1992, Stein et al, 1992), and to selectively decrease deviant arousal without significantly decreasing appropriate arousal (Bradford, Greenberg, Gojer Martindole & Goldberg, 1995; Kafka, 1992; Kafka & Prentky, 1994). Greenberg and Bradford (1997) have hypothesized that paraphilias may result when there is an inability to suppress conventional sexual appetites. Since serotonin affects sexual appetite, SSRIs may help alter a dysfunctional serotonergic system, thereby allowing suppression of unconventional sexual appetites."(emphasis mine)"Furthermore SSRIs have been used in the treatment of PTSD. One study found that after a year of SSRI treatments, subjects with PTSD had a 5% increase in hippocampal volume and a 35% increase in memory function (Bremner, 2006)*. Together, these findings indicate a variety of reasons why SSRIs may be beneficial for offenders with multiple paraphilias." p. 547 (emphasis mine)

It's from this book:Sexual Deviance: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment. edited by D. Richard Laws, William O'Donohue. New York, Guilford Publications, 1997.A new edition fully revised was published in 2008.This is the page from where I took the paragraph.I had already thought reading on a fiction story, a movie or a novel, about using SSRIs to suppress arousal, women giving Paxil/Seroxat to their husbands and many other ways humankind can use this side effect.But I never thought about this medical use.I've stressed "deviant sexual thoughts and fantasies" because it's widely reported on SSRI-sex Yahoo group people claiming that their normal sexual fantasies and thoughts have been altered or disappeared.Claiming that "SSRIs may help alter a dysfunctional serotonergic system" is not a good explanation. Why on earth people who have conventional sexual fantasies are also affected when they take SSRIs?It's written here:"Since serotonin affects sexual appetite,..." and this is what really happens along with changes in sexual thoughts and fantasies which should be investigated because normal people are having sexual problems such as anorgasmia, lost of libido, lack of sexual thoughts and fantasies even after years off SSRIs.It should be considered as an serious iatrogenic condition and not praised because it can fix paraphilias.*This is quite scary! I wonder what kind of alterations this increasing of hippocampal volume can do.